The Teaching of the Inanimate

Animate means lively, to give life to. What is the so-called inanimate and can the inanimate teach us about life? This was Tozan Ryokai's koan--the teaching of the non-sentient.

I was in close proximity to a couple of restaurant patrons one of whom became enlightened upon seeing dead shrimp on her plate. Her question, "What is that?!" while pointing to its eyes revealed her ignorance regarding what the now insentient menu item once was. In a former lifetime it possessed eye-consciousness--like she, and her subsequent cutting off and burying the heads in her napkin to me demonstrated that she couldn't see eating herself--her self. Sojun Roshi taught us that the food industry objectifies the animals it cages and slaughters in order to prevent the workers from truly seeing the animals' sentience and thereby their own. If they did they wouldn't be able to perform their job. It is a more efficient way of "processing" the animals from a business point of view but the desensitization of the slaughters, fishermen etc maintains a separation of self and other. When we separate from what's in front of us we too kill life. Objectifying the enemy combatants away from their birthright as human beings creates more efficient soldiers on our side. When we objectify people they lose their sentience (and significance) to us. However, if we meet them as we meet ourselves in zazen then even the so-called insentient will preach the dharma for us. To study the self is to forget the self [centered thinking] and to forget the self is to be enlightened by the 10,000 dharmas both sentient and not for in that moment there is no distinction between sentience and non-sentience.

In zazen I had the experience of not quite being sentient in that I was drowsy and inattentive to my posture and breath. When the thought arose to intend directing energy into both of these forms of our practice, I felt a surge of wakefulness, of uprightness which supported me throughout the rest of the period of zazen. When we sit upright we take in the whole universe. When we slouch either physically or consciously we don't. It felt as if I had breathed life or sentience into my mudra which had died in a manner of speaking. There was awareness and Buddha breathed. Buddha breathes for all of us when we vow to enter the dharma gates which are right here in this mudra and on this plate.

When we see with our eyes and hear with our ears we are in the world of duality which has a place for keeping us safe as in not touching a hot stove and maintaining relative awareness to attend to the task at hand--the world of form. When we hear with our eyes and see with our nose we are living in the non-dual world--the world of emptiness. Conventional understanding of consciousness is turned on its head as Dogen Zenji writes, "Seeing forms with the whole body and mind, hearing sounds with the whole body and mind, one understands them intimately". We are receiving the 10,000 dharmas and thus are brought back to life through the unobstructed sense faculties. When we let go of self-centered thinking we become inanimate, "dead", and at the same time we become animate and animated as a result of achieving greater intimacy within our environment.

While riding up Milvia Street I was awakened by the clear, crisp sound of raking. A sentient being was raking insentient leaves with an insentient rake or was it? The teaching, "Where am I? Who am I?" filled the universe. Having just come from zazen I was somewhat free of extraneous mental distractions and thus more receptive to this teaching of the insentient.

At Peet's where I work I have a practice of gathering up stray coffee beans on the counter which have been misplaced. They normally reside in the bin or the bag but sometimes they get "lost". Every two beans represents the shared inside of one ripe coffee cherry picked by hand far away from Berkeley. This practice I undertake of collecting insentient coffee beans connects me to the sentient farmworker and I believe shows respect for their handwork. It also connects me to all the people involved in the cultivation, process, transport and brewing of the beverage--the soil, the machinery, the marketing et cetera. The interconnectedness of the sentient by way of paying attention to the insentient is experienced in the practice of zazen--of bringing zazen off the cushion and into the world.

This little notebook I've used to "put my thoughts to paper" has felt inanimate for most of the time I've possessed it. While I didn't intend to acquire it, it came my way nevertheless and now I'm its custodian. When I truly accepted my responsibility for having it it my life I've discovered that it actually helps me organize my thoughts which helped in the preparation of this talk. It has a life now and is a part of me. It breathes life back into me when I read what has been written. It is a mirror, it is my life. When we pluck a shrimp from the ocean or a notebook from a display shelf we enter into a relationship with "it". How do we honor that relationship?

We don't step on the mealboard in the zendo because it's Buddha's tongue. This upaya or skillful use of metaphor brings our attention to what's in front of us. If we see things as Buddha versus non sentient, we'll tend to have more reverence for them and with that a more mindful relationship. We will relate to them not as objects but as subjects--the subject of our life. To wake up. Homeless people are often objectified and thus become insentient to us so we don't have to relate to them. As we pass them we feel dead as well as they do by our lack of attention and respect for them. By making eye contact, by paying attention they become sentient and we enter into a relationship with them.

Hozan: Do insentient beings preach the Dharma to sentient beings? Do insentient beings preach the Dharma to insentient beings?

Tetsudo: What do you consider insentient?

Hozan: Things that don't breathe.

Tetsudo: Many of us have heard you play lovely music on your guitar which is made of now insentient wood. You've spoken of the best music being played seamlessly when musicians come forward to play their part and then return to the whole--that the music really comes alive. That the wood is alive. So you tell me?

Hozan: I'm pretty clear on the first question. We're communicating back and forth, the so-called insentient and the so-called sentient.

Tetsudo: The Buddha taught sentient beings how to deal with their suffering. The insentient can take care of themselves.